Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

The West Virginia eighth-grader who was suspended and, astonishingly, arrested last week after he refused to remove a t-shirt supporting the National Rifle Association returned to school on Monday.

In a move The Daily Caller can only characterize as courageous, 14-year-old Jared Marcum returned to Logan Middle School in Logan County, West Va., wearing exactly the same shirt, which depicts a hunting rifle with the statement “protect your right.”

According to Fox News, other students across the rural county showed their support for Marcum by wearing similar shirts to school.

“There’s a lot of people wearing this same exact shirt, showing great, great support and I really appreciate it,” Marcum said in the morning outside the schoolhouse door, according to local NCB affiliate WBOY-TV.

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

Personally, I would like to see more back-patting for things like standing up for your right to live in a world where violence and defence thereof not required. We have swaggered all over the planet for millennia because we're intelligent, moral, humane, righteous, evolved creatures -the absolute top of the heap in all the known universe - and yet we consider it to be a source of pride when a kid dons a scrap of cloth depicting a killing weapon and a slogan. Have we though about this at all, America?

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

kotn... I always appreciate your comments.... but in this one here.... do you see the irony of your statement?

"We have swaggered all over the planet for millennia because we're intelligent, moral, humane, righteous, evolved creatures -the absolute top of the heap in all the known universe - and yet we consider it to be a source of pride when a kid dons a scrap of cloth depicting a killing weapon and a slogan. Have we though about this at all, America?

If we were actually intelligent, moral, humane.... if we were in fact the " top of the heap".... then this whole discussion would not work..... would it?

Removing a persons right to defend himself..... is as inhumane as declawing a cat because it ruins the furniture.

There has to be another way of looking at all of this? Isn't there? Its not as easy a question as it first seems.

I have thought for a long time that perhaps our own warlike behavior and agressiveness.... and love of weapons is the one thing that might just save us someday. I know that seems strange to say.... but some gifts are not recognized on the surface. Just my own two cents this morning....... Linda

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

See, that's entirely backward, in my view. We have a societal system that *causes* the fear and alienation that is the root of violence. There *are* human societies that are non-violent, but the swaggering, arrogant ones appear on the scene and destroy the silence.

What would happen if we started thinking in entirely different terms now? We stop with the systems that hurt us (lame ideas like money and ownership, that are just ego constructs) and start making the requirement to give aide and assistance to those who need it. We share *all* information. It takes a very long time to get one's head around this kind of shift, so take it slowly and in small bites at first, but do let it grow and really start to see the ramifications. Everything and everyone here, just as in the rest of the universe, is all connected. We are quite literally entangled. There is no escaping that. That is a formal truth. So how do we make the best of it, because guns and defence are simply the worst in any scenario. Humanity will die out at this rate. Only the last man standing can feel safe in the kind of world we live in now, and one man is not a race of beings. He is the end of the line. What's the guarantee that he will have the qualities we hold in such high esteem - the values we cannot espouse, because of our self-induced profound fear.

It's not defence we need to preserve. We need to construct a society that encourages us to be better than we are now, and we have nowhere to go but up. We are pretty much at the bottom now, you have to admit.

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

Your words are wise kotn... but the practicality of it is encased in this question. HOW DO WE GET FROM WHERE WE ARE (decidedly not a good place) to the place where we all realize the truths that you have mentioned here.? How do we go from this life that we have all grown up in.... to the life of the future which offers so much compassion for our brothers and sisters and hope for the future of all of us? Step by step.... how do we get there. I think that we all realize that the time is coming when talk and theories just will not work any more.

If we trick ourselves ( or allow others use misinformation and deception) into giving up any form of self defense....Will we be cannon fodder? From human neighbors? We might even be fodder for something from outside of our system?....I know that sounds like fear talking but I regard it as being wise to be cautious...

Everyone assumes that any being that can travel in space would have superior " firepower" and would overwhelm us immediately. And that could be true. But their might be some holes in that thinking........

If "their" objectives in our direction are malicious....they obviously have not moved against us yet..is that safe to say? Too much of a assumption????. or I wouldn't be typing this.....so there is a chance that we have not come up against that ultimately negative force yet. The one thing that might be in our favor is that they would underestimate our capabilities for self defense.

Theoretically of course the answer to Einsteins question becomes the top issure here. He was asked was was the most important question that he would like to see the answer for... and his response was....." Is the Universe a friendly place?"......... If it IS then of course we can immediately put down our defenses and go about constructing the world that you have mentioned and that I think we should all hope and work for.

But the truth of it is that we Don't KNOW.... we don't have enough information ..... we DON'T know what is out there.... We Don't know what we are capable of.....

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

Originally Posted by kotn

See, that's entirely backward, in my view. We have a societal system that *causes* the fear and alienation that is the root of violence. There *are* human societies that are non-violent, but the swaggering, arrogant ones appear on the scene and destroy the silence.

What would happen if we started thinking in entirely different terms now? We stop with the systems that hurt us (lame ideas like money and ownership, that are just ego constructs) and start making the requirement to give aide and assistance to those who need it. We share *all* information. It takes a very long time to get one's head around this kind of shift, so take it slowly and in small bites at first, but do let it grow and really start to see the ramifications. Everything and everyone here, just as in the rest of the universe, is all connected. We are quite literally entangled. There is no escaping that. That is a formal truth. So how do we make the best of it, because guns and defence are simply the worst in any scenario. Humanity will die out at this rate. Only the last man standing can feel safe in the kind of world we live in now, and one man is not a race of beings. He is the end of the line. What's the guarantee that he will have the qualities we hold in such high esteem - the values we cannot espouse, because of our self-induced profound fear.

It's not defence we need to preserve. We need to construct a society that encourages us to be better than we are now, and we have nowhere to go but up. We are pretty much at the bottom now, you have to admit.

Think about this for a good while before commenting.

No need to think, and My post was a joke.
The whole senario of the film The day the Earth stood still was fear based, but it was less frightening to Me than The wizard of Oz.

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

The Wizard of Oz was terrifying because most of what was presented was quite true.... the illusions presented..... all very true... even the " bubbles" that could transport you from one place to the next....all very telling.

Sitting beside Curtis LeMay and watching him spouting off about " understanding" the principles that my Dad had demonstrated at a special meeting on April 15th, 1967.....Knowing that this was the same man who would have been considered a war criminal for his firebombings of Japan.... if we had lost the war.....Seeing him chomp on his cigar and act as if he was in control.... THAT was terrifying.

But knowing that there was a lady at the meeting that he respected so much he would not light that cigar in her presence....and her husband who had held the meeting.... Floyd Odlum...his Atlas Company made sure that our space program got off to the start it deserved....So there are forces for good as well as the bombastic elements ( sorry about the pun).....

Its just that most of the time the forces that can actually MANIFEST the good..... don't realize the power that they have. It could all change so quickly once that happens...........Linda

Re: Perhaps The Only Hope Left For This Country (USA)

I was speaking only about humans. I hope there is also the realization that we are connected to the planet and all of the beings on this planet, without exception, as well as obviously the connection with our own kind, but in this particular instance I meant only our human kind.

My point is that if one person is miserable, it affects us all. If and when we realize that allowing others to do without for any of our various vain and arrogant reasons (*cough* capitalist values *cough*) then eventually it will most certainly catch up with our own butts.

The way we get there from here is Compassion. Do unto others exactly as you would have them do unto you. Walk in their moccasins. Your feet may not fit but your heart will.

Humans are emotional beings. It is our greatest strength. It *is* our strength. Imagine how our current culture has destroyed that aspect of us. We churn out fear, not love. We are walking in the darkness of our own bellybuttons. We somehow justify all the crimes we commit to others as being just, while when we get a small taste of it ourselves it's unacceptable. Along with our arrogance and vanity, we are also the finest examples of hypocrisy out there. We are nothing to be proud of, if you really open your eyes, but more so, your heart. Open your hearts. Look through the lens of your hearts. Look at your world. The heart's lens is both microscope and telescope at the same time. As above, so below. You cannot escape the entanglement. Do unto others with the purest love.

We have the choice to make those changes with every single passing second. Every thought you produce is a choice. You can change those choices as freely as you yourself choose to. Are you awake? Are you a conscious, sentient being? Or just exactly how thorough is your assimilation? Whose life are you living?